Intel has closely cooperated with China-based IC design houses Spreadtrum Communications and Rockchip Electronics to promote its platforms in the China market in order to compete with Qualcomm and MediaTek for smartphone- and tablet-use chip solutions, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers.

Intel is set to ship 44 million tablet processors in 2015 and the volume is estimated to account for one-third of non-Apple tablet shipments.

Although Intel had losses of about US$4 billion from its mobile device business in 2014, pumping its accumulative losses up to US$7 billion, Intel still decided to continue pushing the business line as the company's Internet of things (IoT) business will need assistance from its mobile devices.

Intel will license its x86 technologies and provide technical support to Spreadtrum and Rockchip enabling the two players to design x86-based solutions for China's mobile device industry. The two China-based players have already received orders from several local vendors.

Spreadtrum is planning to release a series of Intel-based SoCs in the second half of 2015 and is already negotiating with several China-based smartphone vendors for orders.